Government and Democracy

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Political Equality is the view that, in political matters, everyone should have an equal say. Political Sufficiency is the view that, in political matters, everyone should have enough of a say. Whereas Political Equality is concerned with relativities, Political Sufficiency is a matter of absolutes. It is natural to assume that, to justify ‘one person, one vote,’ we must appeal to Political Equality. We argue that this is not the case. If Political Equality justifies ‘one person, one vote,’ so does (...) Political Sufficiency. Moreover, there is reason to prefer Political Sufficiency to Political Equality. (shrink)

This chapter aims to make analytical political philosophy part of existing discussions about the role of numbers in the workings of political institutions that already cut across many other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. To do that, it will first explore the prominent ‘capability approach’ to justice, which is characterised by scepticism towards excessive precision in law- and policy-making. Given the close link between precision and quantification, the loudest voice from political philosophy will therefore turn out to be (...) one of warning against the use of numbers in political decision-making. However, the chapter will also discuss powerful objections to the capability approach that, building on the work of John Rawls, stress the importance of public justification and, in turn, simplifying devices in political decision-making. Those objections will be used to demonstrate that quantification can play functions that are very important from a normative perspective. To further support its claim that under certain circumstances, numerical tools might well be the best way of making political decisions, the chapter will use as a case study the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, an administrative body in charge of appraising health technology for use in the British National Health Service. (shrink)

In a recent article, Kiel Brennan-Marquez and Stephen E. Henderson argue that replacing human judges with AI would violate the role-reversibility ideal of democratic governance. Unlike human judges, they argue, AI judges are not reciprocally vulnerable to the process and effects of their own decisions. I argue that role-reversibility, though a formal ideal of democratic governance, is in the service of substantive ends that may be independently achieved under AI judges. Thus, although role-reversibility is necessary for democratic governance when human (...) judges are on the job, it may not be so when AI judges replace them. One broader implication for normative evaluation of disruptive technologies follows: formal and substantive ideals that often align must be independently examined in the evaluation of disruptive technologies. This is because these formal and substantive ideals may no longer align under the factual circumstances that come to govern when such technologies are deployed. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to examine how a national minority, in our case Israeli Arabs, perceives its representations in the media during a global pandemic. The importance of this research is in gaining a better understanding of the perceptions of such minorities during global crises so that it can serve as a framework for various similar studies. Israeli Arabs were perceived as those who did not obey the instructions of the Ministry of Health and the government of Israel (...) during the pandemic. Therefore, this study asks: “How and in what ways do Israeli Arabs perceive their representations in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic?” Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to answer this question. The findings show that the interviewees believe that the media did not represent them properly but in a stereotypical way, and that the government and media should have adjusted health instructions in a way that is compatible with their culture. The research concludes that the media have the responsibility of ensuring an overall representation of minorities that is adequate and positive. (shrink)

Relational egalitarianism holds that people should live together as equals. We argue against the received wisdom amongst both friends and foes of relational egalitarianism that it fails to provide a theory of intergenerational justice. Instead, we argue that relational egalitarianism is concerned with social equality amongst future contemporaries, and that this commitment gives rise to duties of justice for current generations that can be grounded in the idea of generational overlap. In doing so, we argue that that the scope of (...) relational egalitarian concerns extends beyond generations amongst whom social relations exist. (shrink)

Prior to the democratic breakthrough in most Western countries, the right to vote was premised on a person’s economic contribution. No country today reserves voting rights exclusively to contributors, but economic contribution matters once again. It matters for immigrants’ access to citizenship and its associated political rights, and it matters for emigrants’ attempts to keep the right to vote in their ‘home country’. Economic contribution has attracted very little attention in the literature on democratic inclusion. The few scholars who have (...) discussed it have rejected it based on its expected implications, without going into detail about its different instantiations and normative underpinnings. This paper lays the foundation for a more thorough critique. Informed by historical practices, we distinguish between two main types of economic contributivist regulations: those that condition the right to vote on the size of the contribution, and those that condition it on compliance with legally required contributions. We suggest that contributivism can be based either on property rights or on reciprocity. We conclude the paper by contrasting contributivism with established principles of democratic inclusion (such as the all-affected principle), and by arguing that, unlike these other principles, contributivism is incompatible with the democratic ideal of self-rule. (shrink)

Freedom and security are often portrayed as things that have to be traded off against one another, but this view does not capture the full complexity of the freedom-security relationship. Rather, there seem to be four different ways in which freedom and security connect to each other: freedom can come at the cost of security, security can come at the cost of freedom, freedom can work to the benefit of security, and security can work to the benefit of freedom. This (...) paper analyses each of these connections in turn. It shows that particular understandings of freedom can help us to see particular connections between freedom and security. The practical examples used to illustrate these connections are drawn from the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be suggested that, in the face of challenges such as this one, taking into account all four connections between freedom and security can ultimately help decision-makers in upholding both. (shrink)

Con este artículo tratamos de responder parcialmente a la pregunta: ¿Cómo dar lugar a lo común desde la deliberación y la toma democrática de decisiones en sistemas humanos complejos, altamente diversos desde el punto de vista económico, social y cultural? Para ello, proponemos entender los procesos de deliberación y toma democrática de decisiones en sí mismos como común. En primer lugar, ilustraremos cómo en la actualidad dichos procesos pueden incurrir en la llamada “tragedia de los anticomunes”, y señalaremos tres problemas (...) centrales a este respecto: la individualización de la responsabilidad ciudadana, la erosión de los canales de información y formación de la opinión pública y la estrechez del ámbito de la deliberación y toma democrática de decisiones. En segundo lugar, ofreceremos una salida al primero de los problemas mencionados, inspirándonos en aportaciones provenientes de la teoría asamblearia. Finalmente, responderemos a los otros dos problemas apuntados, basándonos en una serie de postulados defendidos desde la tradición republicana y el modelo de democracia deliberativa y participativa. (shrink)

Populism is one of the most discussed topics in political theory. Nonetheless, much work remains to be done in order to understand populism in historical context. To what extent is contemporary populism a distinctively modern phenomenon? To what extent does it have roots and precedents in earlier periods of political history? And how can studying populism in the light of rhetoric and the history of ideas help us answer these questions? As this book demonstrates, contemporary populism, even if it is (...) a relatively recent phenomenon, has evident links with a wide range of longstanding topics in the history of political thought and the tradition of rhetoric: for instance, disputes over populist and elitist approaches to rhetorical persuasion, conflicts between the technical expertise of "the few" and the lay opinions of "the many," and debates over models of political leadership and civic education. This volume also draws new connections between populism and demagoguery, a phenomenon that has been discussed by political theorists and philosophers since antiquity. Contributors to the volume explore the significant conceptual overlaps between populism and demagoguery (such as their relation to manipulative or flattering rhetoric, and their resistance to systematic analysis), as well as their important differences (such as populism's comparatively greater ideological content). With this wide range of connections in mind, the volume draws on diverse perspectives and methodologies in order to enrich the debate on populist politics by locating its theorization in an historical perspective. (shrink)

During the summers of 2005 to 2009, Gustavo Bueno prepared five books that the publishing house Temas de Hoy, of Grupo Planeta, published during the fall (Spain is not a myth appeared in November 2005, Zapatero y el Pensamiento Alicia in October 2006, The Faith of the Atheist in October 2007, The Myth of the Right in October 2008). Some of the topics in those books were suggested by the publisher; The writing during the summer of 2009 was proposed by (...) the author: Democratic Corruption. Democracy and corruption. Under that label the first draft was typed in September, on Saint Matthew's Day. He then asked the publisher to modify the title, as it could scare away the bookstore public, so in its first revision, at the end of September, the book had already been renamed The stench of democracy (democracy and corruption). But since the term stench could also apparently hurt those who sell books, Bueno then proposed that it be titled, more poetically, The Secret Perfume of Democracy (thus the October 4 version), which also did not seem commercial enough. The final text delivered to the publisher, at the end of that month, was titled Democratic fundamentalism, with which it arrived in bookstores on January 13, 2010 with a subtitle given by the publisher, Spanish democracy under examination. In this edition, which makes up the fifth volume of the Complete Works, we maintain the name by which this work is known although we recover the subtitle that inspired its composition, Democracy and Corruption. In December 2009, having already reviewed the evidence for Democratic Fundamentalism, we noticed that a prominent individual from the Spanish Academy of Language had already published, five years earlier, another book with the same title, so it seemed appropriate. prepare the "label" corresponding to that phrase for the Finder of the Philosophy in Spanish project. When the book hit the shelves, Well, he had already published in El Catoblepas that month of January, a profound analysis, with a brilliant and far from simple classification, of the expression "democratic fundamentalism", based on the materials collected two weeks before in the label of the Finder. This "History (natural) of the expression democratic fundamentalism", written as stated after the book, thus becomes its essential complement, and that is why it is incorporated into this volume. In chapter 12 of Democratic Fundamentalism, Bueno deals with the degeneration of the principle of independence of the judicial power, which he exemplifies with the case of a judge corrupted by the Jesus Christ complex, so it was convenient to offer in this volume the scratch that in September of 2008 dedicated to a judge who was as divine as he was humanly self-conscious. This fifth volume is completed with two other scratches published in El Catoblepas, closely related to the subject of the book: "Corruption & Crisis" (February 2013) and "The Strong Ideas of Democratic Fundamentalism and Democratic Counterfundamentalism" (July 2014). On the page dedicated to this book on the Gustavo Bueno Foundation site, the reader can find several interviews compiled and some videos in which the author discusses this work. (shrink)

Dialogues on Democracy offers a panoramic overview of recent and classical debates on the meaning of democracy as a philosophical ideal. It features some of the most central discussions that exist in the literature regarding its value, its purpose, and its (possible) flaws. Accessibly written and efficiently organized, the book is structured around a fictional conversation involving four participants: a teacher of philosophy and political theory and three of her most notable and dedicated students. Their dialogues capture the essence of (...) some of the most powerful objections and counter objections to democracy and its institutions, allowing the reader to understand the origins and logic of much philosophical thinking concerned with political life. Maskivker provides succinct but highly informative arguments in defense of democracy while deftly addressing serious questions regarding its legitimacy coming from diverse corners of the ideological spectrum. The discussion addresses issues concerned with the justification and institutional plausibility of collective government, citizen equality, political representation, citizen action, civic virtue, and many other themes. Perfectly suited for a first introduction to the philosophical analysis of democracy, the book covers extensive ground in an instructive and dynamic way. In the book, Maskivker also offers her own novel insights regarding the value of democracy and its distinct interpretations-- a contribution that makes the book all the more interesting and complete. (shrink)

Creating Democracy brings into dialogue for the first time two important theorists of democracy: Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). Their shared conception of democracy stemming from their encounters with totalitarian governments - Nazi Germany for Arendt and Stalinist Russia for Bakhtin - and the rise of authoritarian populism in both Europe and America make their ideas more relevant than ever. Charles Hersch contends that Arendt and Bakhtin have a unique vision of democracy that centers on creation and creativity. (...) These two thinkers imagine a world that both makes room for the cultivation and expression of each person's individuality and facilitates healthy interdependence, one that does not reduce us to sameness. They also describe the many threats to such a humanistic world, whether ideological, social, or political. Creating Democracy also makes a unique contribution to debates in political theory about the possibility of freedom in modern society. Offering an alternative to poststructuralism and liberalism, Arendt and Bakhtin show us how, in a variety of complex ways, subjects who are influenced by their culture, especially by the language in which they speak and think, can nonetheless help construct themselves and the world. For both thinkers, humans are meaning-making beings who shape the world, primarily through language, even as it shapes us. This book brings to light a rich vision of democracy that is sorely needed in a time when authoritarianism threatens us more than it has in decades. Students and scholars in political science, cultural studies and literature will all find this book indispensable. (shrink)

Parents appear to dominate their children in ways they cannot with other adults. While it might seem unavoidable, this issue raises important questions about whether children are unfree under parental authority. Republican theories of freedom, such as Philip Pettit’s influential account, look especially vulnerable. He claims that we are free only if non-dominated and so not under the arbitrary interference by others. Domination is a threat to freedom that republican freedom opposes for all. However, non-domination seems impossible to avoid for (...) everyone, most notably children, which is broadly accepted. If so, it is unclear why domination is permissible for some and not others if it is an evil for all to avoid. In this article, I argue that parental authority need not entail domination where it is subject to legitimacy constraints drawing on Pettit’s work on freedom and criminal justice that might also be endorsed by non-republicans. Republican children can enjoy non-domination from the cradle to the grave and this reveals how parental authority need not render children unfree for non-republicans as well. (shrink)

This article delves into the academic discussion on the relationship between populism and liberal democracy, challenging the view that all populist movements, parties, and leaders are inherently illiberal. Drawing from a Laclauian perspective, which frames populism as an integral part of democratic politics that amplifies the voices of marginalized groups, we argue that populism can align with the principles of liberal democracy and/or does not necessarily lead to illiberal democracy or authoritarianism. Through the examination of left-wing populist cases in Argentina (...) [Kirchnerism (2003-2015)] and Greece [SYRIZA (2015-2019)], we aim to demonstrate the inadequacy of approaches that understand populism as an inherently illiberal phenomenon, which often overlook the pluralistic and inclusive aspects of populism. Thus, we provide a response to this query: Is every populist case necessarily illiberal? (shrink)

How is it possible to perform more than is required? And yet, isn’t that precisely what is required, in order for an interlocking society of human beings to function, develop and evolve? If human beings only did what we were told to do, we would live in complete monotony and enslavement. If human beings did only what we were permitted to do, nothing interesting would ever happen. Although performance has often been limited to the study of isolated artistic forms of (...) expressions (music, visual arts, etc.), it is equally possible to analyze culture, on the whole, as a behaviour-encoding system of rules and regulations, wherein the individual actor’s performative appropriation and reinterpretation of these said (cultural, political, artistic) rules makes possible the culture’s very survival, against all odds and obstacles, over long periods of time, as a “tradition” upheld by a community of rule-followers / rule-breakers. Rules, in a very real sense, are meant to be broken. Rule-breaking, by the same token, is, as it were, legislated within the very law code itself, as its own guarantee of immortality. After all, what law could function for any period of time without undergoing reinterpretation? This is good news both for culture and for the avant garde (the creative individual or collective), because even the strictest of rules creates its own conditions of transgression, and vice versa. The performance of culture through the creative freedom of the transgressive individual – i.e. any individual qua his or her individuality – is the sine qua non for a democratic society of peers. Creativity depends upon structure, and structure depends upon that which breaks its shackles of normativity, by rebirthing structure transgressively. The whole point of interpreters is to make things alright for the reappearance of the “father” (the law code) again. Ironically, then, anarchy is the only guarantee of the rule of law. (shrink)

Suppose COVID-19 is the runaway tram in the famous moral thought experiment, known as the “Bystander at the Switch.” Consider the two differentiated responses of governments around the world to this new threat, namely the option of quarantine/lockdown and herd immunity. Can we contrast the hypothetical with the real scenario? What do the institutional decisions and strategies for dealing with the virus, in the beginning of 2020, signify in a normative moral framework? This paper investigates these possibilities in order to (...) highlight the similarities and, more importantly, the differences that exist between utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Analysis shows that the hypothetical scenario can never be fully compared to the complex multifactorial nature of the real world. But if a comparison is attempted, the most obvious difference between the two governmental strategies is the concept of duty within the Kantian perspective. Ultimately, it is a matter of comparing freedom and life. Attributing a moral “priority ticket” to one or the other can be analysed through interpersonal aggregation. (shrink)

This essay argues that an alternative conception of time to that underlying the ideology of productivism and growth is not only possible, but desirable. The creation of this time requires what I refer to as the practice of refusal via taking time: the self-determined arrangement of the nexus of time, action and utility that begins with the a-synchronous insertion of unproductive time into the synchronous horizontal time of productivism. The essay is divided into three sections. The first offers the reader (...) a discussion of Jacques Rancière’s notion of time as a social and political medium that partitions and distributes actions and utility. The subsequent section of the essay elaborates in aesthetic terms an account of unproductive time that is indifferent to the time of productivism. In the final section, I discuss examples that show how taking time to do ‘nothing’ can elicit an emancipatory politics that seeks to liberate us from the hegemony of productivism. I conclude that political theory should attend to time as a political medium and to the possibilities of its occupation, and that picturing the taking of time in terms of stopping the force of productivism’s normalized horizontal time by entering the unproductive time of reverie and aesthetic experience, provides a promising perspective from which to apprehend a time for thriftless refusals, deliberate dis-identifications, and the forging of cooperation among people(s) and with nature. (shrink)

This collection of papers is intended to provide a survey of the history of political ideas in the Ottoman world from its dawn around 1300 to its downfall in the early 20th century. It features fourteen original papers by some of the most prominent and innovative scholars of Ottoman history. The book sheds light on the complex role that ideas have played in all aspects of Ottoman social and political life throughout the history of the Ottoman world, across time, space, (...) social class, and ethnic and religious identity. Histories of Political Thought in the Ottoman World takes exception to a common tendency, both among Ottoman historians and in the broader academic world, that considers Ottoman political life exclusively in terms of the political ideas of the Sunni Muslim governing elite. It makes clear that the non-elite, non-Sunni Muslim, non-Muslim, non-Turkish, and female members of the Ottoman society have also significantly contributed to the making of Ottoman political culture throughout its history. (shrink)

The author, for a long time director of the BBC, underlines the importance of effective, non-aseptic communication, to contrast the fake news and the demagogy that the Internet favors.

This article focuses on the so-called “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice” (ASFJ), namely the policy field of the European Union (EU) that covers judicial and police cooperation, migration and asylum policies and the control of external borders. The article explores how the AFSJ has emerged and how, within it, the relationship between freedom and security has evolved over time and brought about a shift towards a “Security Union”.

This article introduces the most recent debates on the relationship between theory and action in normative political theory. We first discuss non ideal theory, radical realism and engaged political theory. Then, we outline the main features of pragmatic reformism, prefigurative politics, and a progressive approach to normative theorizing.

The end of politics, or, The realist utopia -- The uses of democracy -- The community of equals -- Democracy corrected.

Polycentric Governance and the Good Society is the first extended academic work to explore in depth what it means, not only from an economic and organizational standpoint but also from a broader ethical, sociological, and anthropological perspective, to live in a polycentric political system.

Yet this perfectionist theme of Confucianism did not begin with these masters. Instead, they were working within and in response to a longstanding political tradition that can be traced back to the mythical beginning of Chinese civilization according to which the legendary sage-kings established a realm of peace, prosperity and harmony. One can hardly ascertain the historical truth of these myths, but the historical imagination of these sage-king nonetheless informed Confucianism's foundational understanding of the nature of politics in what was (...) eventually canonized as the Five Confucian Classics. These five sets of books contain the stories, sayings and poetry of the ancient sagely leaders, which are deemed as the default authoritative source of wisdom by Confucians throughout the ages. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in workplace democracy, the question whether nonworker stakeholders, like suppliers and local communities, warrant inclusion in the governance of democratic companies, as workers do, has been largely neglected. We inspect this question by leaning on the boundary problem in democratic theory. We first argue that the question of who warrants inclusion in democratic workplaces is best addressed by examining why workplace democracy is warranted in the first place, and offer a twofold normative benchmark—addressing objectionable corporate power and (...) upholding efficiency—to assess the principles of democratic inclusion on offer. Against this benchmark, we next argue that the All-Affected Principle is unfit due to its over- and underinclusive extensional results, and that the All-Subjected Principle, whose variants we examine alongside their extensional results, holds more promise when coupled with independent considerations of justice or a constrained variant of the All-Affected Principle. These combinations need not entirely preclude, but speak against, nonworker stakeholder inclusion. (shrink)

This paper presents a new version of the democratic argument for the freedom of expression that has the resources to give a plausible reply to the perennial objection—ordinarily considered fatal—that such accounts fail to deliver protections for abstract art, instrumental music, and lots of other deserving nonpolitical speech. The argument begins with the observation that there are different things that a free speech theory might aim to accomplish. It will hope to justify a right to free speech, of course, with (...) a particular scope and shape, but that right might be a moral right, an ordinary legal right, or a specifically constitutional right. The new version of the argument—the refined argument from democracy—aims to justify a specifically constitutional right to political speech, administered by strong-form judicial review. The democracy theorist can accommodate the intuition that abstract art deserves protection by agreeing that we have a moral right, and probably ought to have an ordinary legal right, to produce and view abstract art. She must only insist that abstract art should not be protected by a specifically constitutional right administered by strong-form judicial review. Not because abstract art does not deserve constitutional protection, but because, on this view, whether a particular right ought to be enshrined in the constitution and administered by judicial review is not solely a matter of the importance of the right or the value of the interests it protects. (shrink)

This article argues that what was understood as democracy in the eighteenth century differs fundamentally from modern democracy. While modern democratic states take locally born or naturalized personhood as the criterion of citizenship, eighteenth-century advocates of democracy demanded proof of political competence to allow participation in politics. While the requirement of competence to engage in any activity is not unreasonable, if defined, as it was by most Enlightenment thinkers, as a combination of independence, cultural standing and wealth, it is clearly (...) elitist. Enlightenment criticisms of birth and status as criteria of political standing should not be mistaken for demands for broadly inclusive, modern conceptions of equality and democracy. Rather, most Enlightenment thinkers and publicists, fully aware of the implications of widespread and debilitating poverty, expressed reservations about granting the ‘people’ an effective role in politics. Far from being ‘radical’, Enlightenment political theory called for the replacement of an elitism based on status and privilege with an elitism of ability and wealth. (shrink)

La sociedad de la información se ha trocado en la sociedad de la confusión. Cuanto más se dice, menos veracidad (confianza en la verdad) se tiene, más ruido se alcanza. En esta sociedad, la esfera pública no puede darse con la necesaria transparencia y libertad. Es imprescindible la esfera del debate plural y la transparencia informativa, del discurso. Pero no hay debate efectivo si no se dan el reconocimiento de la incertidumbre y la opinión, en el marco de consensos o (...) valores compartidos. Un encuentro que nos sitúa en la posición del otro para entenderla, aunque no se esté de acuerdo. (shrink)